


Not Your Own

by Rag



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble, Drugs, Gen, Horror, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 23:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10581795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rag/pseuds/Rag
Summary: With every day the crew gets closer to facing the Galra, and Shiro's nightmares refuse let him forget what he's fighting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings for noncon drugs and noncon body modification  
> idk if this actually warrants a graphic violence warning but w/e

They didn’t tell him what was coming. They didn’t bother. Why would they? He was just another human captive.

They removed his bones, and it hadn’t hurt. Anesthetic was used. He felt nothing. He just watched. Paralyzed.

He thought he was going to die, and he couldn’t even move his mouth to scream. 

Why did they keep him awake? Because they didn’t care. He knew that now, but at the same time, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. He’d had years to process it but he couldn’t understand, how could they care so little? How could he mean so little? He and so many other humans, Galra, alien species he didn’t know the name of, had never seen before or since? How could they all mean nothing to them?

One of the surgeons had been … sadistic. Most of them were sickeningly neutral, but this one, he’d shown Shiro his bones as he removed them. Unevenly covered in rusty blood, hints of dull white from where the Galra’s fingers had brushed. He held them to Shiro’s face, reeking of warmth and iron, and smiled at his glassy expression, guessing at the numb, impotent terror behind the drugged stupor. He asked Shiro what he thought of it. _Have you ever seen one of these before? I think your people call them the humera. Am I saying that right? I didn’t spend too much time learning your stupid language, you’ll have to forgive me. Tell me. Am I saying it right? Tell me, human. Can’t you speak?_

They started with his arm. They’d removed the bones and made a cast inside Shiro’s skin with whirring magitech, metal and oil. They filled it with a thick glowing purplish-black liquid that he could smell the heat of. But Shiro felt nothing. He did nothing. He could do nothing. The liquid hardened with time, and when it fully integrated with his flesh and blood he could do things he couldn’t have imagined before. But he didn’t know that then. He didn’t know anything. They filled the mold and left him there. They’d turned off the lights and left him alone with his thoughts in the darkness. The drug was so strong he couldn’t even close his eyes. A pale blue glow emanated from a machine on the other side of the room, and Shiro stared at it for what felt like months. The paralytic would wear off a few hours later, but he didn’t know that. 

Later, he pieced together what was happening. They were testing bioweapons on their subjects. After they … took his arm, and made it something else, they sent him into a battle ring. They didn’t care if he lived or died. They wanted to see how the weapon would react to a human host. It reacted well, so they’d moved to his legs. Different “enhancements,” the same process. It was less horrifying the second time around. Shiro knew they weren’t going to kill him just yet. He never did find out what these “enhancements” were. He doesn’t want to know.

He doesn’t like to think about the first time they left him there on the table. It was some of the worst moments of his life. The raw animal terror threatened to eat him from within, and. He. Could. Not. Move.

He wakes in an unfamiliar place. The surroundings don’t make sense and he doesn’t know where he is. He’s convinced he’s back _there_ , that he’d never been able to escape. But his throat works this time. He can’t open his mouth to scream, so all that comes out are mangled, choked groans.

And then he hears something that doesn’t fit, at all. Two young voices bickering in another room, muffled by multiple doors. He strains to listen. 

“I told you I was going to take a shower!”

“Did you tell me while I was sleeping?”

“I mean, your eyes were closed, but-“

“Really, Lance?”

“You nodded! You responded! You said actual, English words that made sense in context!”

And it’s so … mundane, comforting, familiar, that slowly, his mind starts to make sense of it.

He’s safe. He’s on the ship. It’s the start of a new day. Keith and Lance are bickering. Water is wet.

Shiro smiles – and his muscles let him, because he’s not paralyzed. He’s free.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t still afraid. There’s a powerful animal part of his brain that screams louder and louder each time they get closer to the Galra. _Run, as far as you can manage. Hide. They will capture you, and they will know better than to leave you any chance of escape this time._ The nightmares were getting more and more frequent the closer they came.

But as he listens to the muffled sounds of his crew bantering with each other, he’s able to push that back. He has to act. He has to lead this team and stop this for good. And he will.

He sits up, his limbs a bit stiff with sleep but moving at his will. It’s time to push forward.


End file.
